David Wright gets cortisone shot in shoulder

New York Mets third baseman David Wright received a cortisone shot in his left shoulder following Sunday’s game against the Miami Marlins. Wright has been battling a bruised rotator cuff and inflammation for the past few weeks, discomfort that already forced him to miss a week’s worth of games at the start of the month. He’ll take advantage of the All Star break to rest, allowing the shot to take effect, in the hopes that he can bounce back and have a healthy second half of the season.

It’s unclear when Wright first started to experience trouble in the shoulder, as it hasn’t seemed to slow him down much at the plate this season. Heading into the break he’s hitting a solid .285/.344/.421 with 8 HR and 24 2B in 392 plate appearances. Those numbers are slightly down to his career marks, but still highly respectable, and yet Wright failed to make the NL All Star team for just the second time in his career.

It sounds, however, as though it might be a blessing in disguise, according to ESPN New York’s Adam Rubin:

"“So physically I’d be unable to go,” Wright said. “It’s not something where they’ve said, hey, it’s going to be a week and it goes away. It’s something that hopefully continues to get better, and it has. That’s why hopefully these four days will do me some good as far as getting back to somewhat full strength.”"

New York has climbed their way back into third place in the NL East heading into the break, but still sit 7.0 games behind the division leading Washington Nationals and Atlanta Braves. The team will have an uphill battle to get into the hunt for a Wild Card spot in the National League. Having a fully healthy Wright to lead the charge would be a solid start to such a pursuit.